Reviews BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. The centralization of American popular cinema continues, with Disney squarely in the rich middle of it: Lucasfilm, Pixar and Marvel Studios all live within the shadow of the Magic Kingdom. This means seemingly every mainstream movie without an R rating is likely to have had the Mouse’s big padded hands […]
Minor Theatre
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Creatures Great and Small
Reviews KEDI. As I age, I see the argument of “cat people” versus “dog people” as an ever more specious one. People will continue to use it to lever their own personal prejudices, of course; such is humanity. But the underlying notion of the innate superiority of one species of furry four-legged thing over another […]
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Battle Scars
Reviews LOGAN. I’ll keep the preamble brief because, if memory serves, I wind up saying essentially the same thing every time a new Marvel movie comes out. As time wears on, and the scale of the Marvel cinematic universe (as well as that of the movies within it) grows ever more (forgive me) cartoonish, I […]
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Sinister Elements
Reviews GET OUT. My (relatively) recent enthusiasm for modern independent horror movies seemed to be on a precipitous slide toward its nadir of late. It was a startling thing to discover, years ago, that directors like James Wan (whom I had written off as part of the cynical torture-porn boom) and producers like Jason Blum […]
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Lightning Round
Reviews OSCAR ANIMATED SHORTS. Aliens, seabirds, alcoholics and the headless can be seen among the eight animated short films nominated for this year’s Oscars, films that range from delightful to disturbing. The program opens with Borrowed Time, a beautifully animated 3-D movie by two Pixar animators about a suicidal sheriff with a painful past, and […]
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Minor Affair
On Friday night, after a furious round of renovations, the Minor Theatre opened again in Arcata with a black-tie celebration and a night of local independent films. After a decade of corporate ownership, the movie house is in the hands of Josh Neff and partner Merrick McKinlay, who promise a steady schedule of independent, foreign […]
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Into and Out of the Theater Business
Looking to manage a marquee? Here’s your chance. The Arcata Theatre Lounge is on the market for a cool $1.85 million via Ming Tree Realtors. The revamped Art Deco venue has been listed for a week and includes shops rented by Bluegrass Barber and Smug’s pizza. Over the phone last week, Lara Cox, who owns […]
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There’s a New Theater Owner in Town
The Minor Theater is in new and, it sounds like, good hands. David Phillips and his wife LouAnna put the theater on the market several years ago, 40 years after purchasing the then-defunct building that was slated at one point to be leveled for downtown parking. The theater celebrated its 100th anniversary in December of […]